Toy Store

This morning we went to a really cool toy store that is just outside of Butler. The building is shaped like a spaceship......I actually think it looks like a Stealth Bomber. I couldn't get far enough back to get a full picture of the building but you can get an idea of what it looks like from my pictures.

These are the unusual doors that you use to enter the store. Jack didn't quite know what to think of them.:0)

The store has all kinds of unusual and unique toys. Not the kind of stuff that you find at Toys-R-Us or Kaybee. Jack immediately discovered some hoola hoops which he recognized from using at Kindermusik on Wednesday. He picked out a pretty sparkly purple one and carried it around with him the whole time we were there.:0) Carter really like the race track and train track displays. They also had a lot of neat games that he found interesting. The store had all kinds of "Step 2" play sets and Jack especially enjoyed the diner and the mailboxes. He played with these most of the time we were there. We didn't buy anything but it was alot of fun to just go look around and play for a little while.

Jack with his purple sparkly hoola-hoop.:0)

Jason and Jack playing in a water table. Jack LOVES water and takes advantage of any time that he can touch/splash it.:0)

Jack playing in the "diner".

Jason racing the cars around the race track....and being a cheese ball!!!

Carter checking out the train set up. He loves model trains and has his own HO set at home.

Carter racing the cars around the race track. He thought this was really cool.:0)


Carter had a basketball this afternoon but I'll have to blog about that tomorrow because I'm tired and Blogger is being too finicky right now.:(

Busy Week!!!

We've had a very busy week here at the Hoerth House. Not the "stress you out" kind of busy but the "yeah we have lots to do!!!" type of busy. Thursday morning I got to watch my friend Angie's little girl, Amelia. She is 10 months old and an absolute sweet pea.:0) She was so good for me the whole time I had her and gave me lots of snuggles which I never got much of with my boys. Jack did much better with her here than I anticipated. He didn't mind the love and attention I was giving her. Until just recently, he would get upset any time I held another baby/child. The only time he reacted towards Amelia was when she either touched his stuff or touched him. I had them both on my lap at one point and she reached her little hand out to touch Jack's arm. Jack looked down at her hand and gently removed it from himself......too funny!!:0)

Thursday evening, Angie and I went to The Brick House, a restaurant/bar in Butler for the Kindermusik Mom's Night Out. It was so nice to be out with other adults and not be looking around to see what my children were up to. I met another pastor's wife whose husband is the minister at a Presbyterian church in Butler. They just moved here last June and she was grateful to meet another pastor's wife in the area. We exchanged e-mail addresses and may get our kiddos together for a playdate some time.

There is a new McDonalds up in Butler and every time we drive past it Jack asks if we can eat lunch there. I always tell him that maybe we can some other time. Jason and I decided to take him there for lunch yesterday and he was so excited.:0) I really think that he could live off of "chicken and french fries" if we would let him.

Friday evening we had dinner at our friends', the Kriberneys, house. They have two little boys who are 3 and 4-years-old. The youngest, Max, will be in Jack's class next year. The boys had a great time chasing each other around and acting crazy and we had a great time talking to Andy and Tiffany and getting to know them better. Tiffany and I spend a decent amount of time with each other and the kids but this was the first time we got together as a couple. It was very nice and we really enjoyed the evening.

I have more to post about Saturday with pictures but I will make a whole new post for that so stay tuned.:0)

Change

I made a bit of a change to our blog. I was getting sick of the same old background so I found a great website that had really cute FREE ones. I hope you all like it although I'm sure it will get changed more frequently now that I have lots more options.:0)

This week is crazy busy for us. Some weeks we have almost nothing on the calendar and then others every day is filled. Last night was Family Game Night at Carter's school. A really cool store called The Thinking Cap brought all these fun educational games for us to try out. They had raffle drawings throughout the night and Carter won a gift certificate to the store. He used it to buy a fun new game that we played.

Jack and I went to Kindermusik this morning. This session is so nice. There are only 6 kiddos in the class so it is more calm and easier to do activities. Jack LOVES Kindermusik and I am floored by how much he learns from week to week. After class we headed to the library to pick out books for Jack and Carter. It is so hard to pick out books for kiddos Carter's age. Most of them involve dragons and magic and things like that which we generally try to steer him away from. He also reads at a higher grade level than he's in so it's hard to find books that are hard enough for him with appropriate content. Jack on the other hand is easy......Clifford, Blue's Clues, Berenstain Bears, and Curious George.:0)

Tonight we'll head off for Ash Wednesday service. I love Lenten services. Just the preparation leading up to Good Friday and Easter uplifts me every year. I think I'm going to give up sweets for Lent this year. I will probably not be a happy camper for the next 6 weeks but it will be good for me physically and spiritually. So, if you see me, please don't offer me sweets or I may have to hurt you!!!:0)

Bye for now.....I'll fill you in on the rest of our week later.

Such A Boy!!!

Jack's new favorite place for his hand is down the back of his pants. Most of the time he's not doing anything back there (i.e. scratching), he's just hanging out with his hand down his pants. What a boy thing!!! Seriously, what is the deal with males and having their hands down their pants?!?! I had to tell a million times during church to get his hand out of his pants. The people behind us thought it was pretty funny, but church isn't the most appropriate of places for my child to have his hand down his rear!!!

Had to share this other Jack "jewel"..... the other night we're sitting at the dinner table and out of the blue he says, "Hey, hold the phone!!!". Yet another Jason phrase that he has picked up. Others include "Oh, you've got to be kidding me!!!" and "Go pedal your pies!!". He gets to be more and more like his daddy every day!! SCARY!!!:0)

Jack Cuteness:0)

Jack is supposed to be napping right now but instead he is upstairs banging on his window. He just recently started pulling his shades aside and looking out his windows (when he's supposed to be sleeping!!!). He saw Jason pull out of the driveway just a few minutes ago and started banging on the window and yelling, "Daddy, come back!!!! Daddy, don't go away!!! Daddy, where you going?!?! Daddy, I gotta go too!!!". It's like I'm holding him prisoner up there and he's desperately yelling for Daddy to come rescue him. What a nut!!!! GO TO SLEEP CHILD!!!!

25 Random Things

I know that people usually do this about themselves, but I thought it would be fun to do it about my boys. In the craziness that is our life, I rarely take time to reflect on the things that make my boys special in their own unique ways. I thought this would be a good way to do just that, so here goes:

25 Random Things About Carter

1. He was born 10 days past his due date. Stubborn then and still stubborn now!!!

2. His hands and feet were so big at birth that one of the nurses nicknamed him "Moose". He still has big hands and feet......we've been told that he has great piano hands.

3. He talks incessantly(sp?).....while making his lunch, getting dressed, brushing his teeth (this takes talent), etc., etc., etc.........

4. He has a heart-shaped birth mark on his bum. I'm sure he would love that I'm sharing this but, hey, what are moms for?!?!

5. He LOVED his binky when he was a baby. We finally broke him of it when he was two but he would cry and say, "My B!!! I want my B!!!"

6. He loves politics and government. With his excellent talking ability, we could be raising the next president of the United States.:0)

7. He has a great sense of humor and loves to laugh. He loves any kind of funny books, movies, comics, etc.

8. We've been told that he has a small mouth and big teeth. An orthodontist's dream, a parent's nightmare!!!

9. He has a wonderful singing voice but doesn't enjoy singing nearly as much as he enjoys talking.:0)

10. He had a lot of trouble learning to read in K/1st grade but now we can hardly keep enough books in the house for him to read!!

11. He loves to play games, especially Monopoly, Life, and Clue.

12. He loves to chew gum.

13. He believes in UFOs no matter how many times we have told him that there is no such thing.

14. His favorite baseball team is the Cardinals and his favorite player is Albert Pujols.

15. He used to claim to be a Patriots fan but I think after the Steelers' Super Bowl win, he would say differently now.

16. He says that his favorite base in baseball is 2nd (don't ask me why, that's just what he said).

17. He has this uncanny way of asking completely random questions early in the morning. I'm barely able to function in the morning much less answer questions!!!

18. His best friend's name is Max and they are like two peas in a pod.:0)

19. He loves video/computer games. We have to limit his time or the boys would be on all day.

20. His favorite book is "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and he was so excited to find out that there will be a new one coming out every year.

21. His favorite place to eat is Cici's Pizza. I don't think it's so much for the pizza as for the arcade that they have there.

22. He won't eat any candy or dessert with peanut butter in it but eats a PB & J sandwich every day for lunch.....go figure!!!

23. He's just like me in a lot of ways......short attention span, stubborn, etc.....which I'm sure is why we butt heads so often.

24. He fell off my bed and broke his leg when he was just under a year old. He had to hobble around in an adorable yellow, bear-covered cast for several weeks.

25. He is my amazing, kind-hearted, imaginative little boy and I LOVE HIM VERY MUCH!!!



25 Random Things About Jack

1. He was born 2 1/2 weeks early and stilled weighted in at a healthy 7 lbs 9oz. Imagine how big he would have been full term...YIKES!!!

2. He was born with the cord around his neck.....very scary.

3. We named him Jack because it was the ONLY boy name we could agree on. His middle name (Nehemiah) is Jason's favorite book of the Bible.

4. He will not wear any kind of pants except jeans. If I try to put track or camo pants on him, a war usually ensues and he's usually the victor.:0)

5. He's picky about his other clothes too. Some mornings he is insistant upon wearing a certain color shirt or a certain pair of underwear.

6. He loves baseball hats. He steals Carter's from his room and wears them way donw over his eyes.....so cute!!!

7. He has bed sheets with letters and numbers on them and he quickly discovered that the lower-case "g" is missing from them.

8. He sleeps with 3 "buddies", Baa ( a really grubby-looking sheep), Big Bird, and Lion.

9. He is a very picky eater......very annoying to his Registered Dietitian mother!!!

10. People are absolutely floored when they see him and Jason together for the first time. He lloks so much like his dad that it's scary sometimes!!!

11. He is a fast little bugar!! I can't believe how fast he can get those little legs of his going!!

12. He inherited my ability to remember every lyric to every song. He has his Kindermusik songs memorized the first week we have them.:0)

13. He loves to talk on the phone with my mom. Every time the phone rings he yells, "I talk with Grandma!!!"

14. He's obsessed with road/highway signs and asks if we can see some EVERY TIME we leave the house......gets to be a tad annoying!!!

15. He has asthma and has to do two nebulizer treatments every day.

16. He loves to "read", especially "The Berenstain Bears".

17. If you tell him "Thank You" he responds by saying, "Oh, your welcome, Sweetie!!".

18. He's a momma's boy. Preschool next year could be interesting!!!

19. He loves shows PBS Kids, especially "Word World", "Martha Speaks", and "SuperWhy".

20. He HATES having his toemails cut. I mean screaming, thrashing, crying, yelling type of hate.

21. He loves to wrestle with Jason. He says, "Daddy, wet's westle!!!"

22. He likes to snuggle in the morning while he drinks his cup of milk. I take full advantage of this time because the rest of the day he doesn't sit still long enough to snuggle.:0)

23. He eats the same lunch every day. We call it his "orange lunch"......cheese/cheese sandwich, carrot sticks, mandarin oranges, and Sunchips (usually Harvest Cheddar).

24. He LOVES water. If there's a puddle, he steps in it. If there's water in the sink, he's splashing in it. I've had to stop him many times as he has been reaching into the toilet or fish tank to play in the water in those.

25. He is my amazing, strong-willed, sensitive little boy and I LOVE HIM VERY MUCH!!!

Valentine's Day

We had a very low-key V-Day yesterday. When we all woke up, we opened our cards and small gifts from each other. I got my present from Jason last week when he took me to Gap to get a new pair of jeans. Not very romantic, but I love buying new clothes so it was perfect!!!:0) We also opened our cards from my parents. They got one for Jack with Pooh on the front. He was SO excited about his Pooh card. He kept saying, "OOOOH, it's Pooh on my card!!!". My mom wrote a little message inside about signs (street signs.....Jack's latest obsession) and Jack LOVED it. He kept opening the card and "reading" the message over and over again. He's so hilarious!!! Then I made chocolate chip waffles for breakfast. YUM!!

Carter had his best friend, Max, over to play later in the morning. They are so funny together...like two peas in a pod. I love that Carter has a best friend that he can just be himself with and talk about anything with. We have been very blessed to have Max as Carter's friend. After I put Jack down for his nap, I took the two boys to their Upward basketball game (their on the same team). Their team played so well together.....we were all very proud of them. Carter has really improved in just the 4 weeks that they've been playing. It is so fun to see his talents and abilities develop.

I made a delicious dinner of spaghetti w/ meat sauce, mixed green salads, and breadsticks. We followed dinner with a delicious dessert that my mom used to make. You just take a store bought angel food cake, slice it horizontally, and put vanilla pudding and cut up strawberries on top of the bottom layer. Then you place the top layer back on, cover it with more strawberries, and then drizzle (liberally!!) with chocolate hard shell. You out it in the fridge for a while and the chocolate hardens up. It's delicious!!!!

Jason is preaching this weekend so we went to church last night. I like Saturday night service because it is so relaxed. Jason announced to the congregation that we turned down the call to Eden, ID and everyone was very happy.:0)

After church, we came home a opened a package from Jason's parents that had arrived in the mail. They got us all some great movies and chocolate (always a hit!!). They sent Jack a really soft puppy stuffed animal and wrote on the card that it could be one of his new "buddies" (that's what we call the 3 stuffed animals that he sleeps with). He got this really concerned look on his face and said, "Um....no thanks. I no want him.". Then he ran off to find his "real" buddies. It was so funny!!!:0)

We hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day. We love and miss you all very much!!!

Busy Day of Playing

It's a cold and VERY windy day here today. Carter had a 2-hour delay this morning because of the high winds. After we took him over to school, Jack and I kept busy inside all morning playing all sorts of fun things. I took lots of pictures to show all of you what we did.

Cutting out shapes in his Play-Doh. He loves play-doh. My cousin says it's because he is a tactile learner.

I know I cut off the top of his head in this picture but his "cheese" face is so darn cute that I had to include it anyway.:0)

Playing "Puupy Pals Bingo". It's a great game by Cranium that teaches shapes, colors, patterns, and taking turns (we need much work on that skill!!!).

Jason brought home this alphabet train puzzle one day and told Jack that it was a surprise just for him. Now every time we get it out he yells, "Surprise!! It's a surprise for me from Daddy!!".

After he put the puzzle together he had to go back and make sure the letters were all in the right order.

Cooking Mommy a meal in his play kitchen.

Spreading butter on our food before we dined on our fabulous feast.:0)

Watching the trees blowing like crazy in the high winds.

Buliding towers with his letter blocks.

Such concentration!!


With the busyness of the morning, it's no wonder Jack's taking a great nap for me now. Gotta love that!!!

Jack Funnies :0)

Jack cracks me up!! He is such a chatter box now and so many of the things that come out of his mouth are hilarious. I really need to start writing them down because it's hard to remember them all. Here are a few from the past couple of days.

Yesterday, he was making me a meal in his play kitchen. He brought me my food and then said, "Oh, I need a fork, a spoon, and a wife." I was laughing so hard and said, "Buddy, you mean you need a knife.". Then he said, "Oh yeah, a knife!!"

Today was gorgeous so we spent some time outside. We got out Jack's t-ball set so he could hit some balls. We had been playing for a while and then all of a sudden he stopped mid-swing and said, "Oh, I need my basketball hat!!!". Again, laughing, I said, "You mean a baseball hat?". Then he replied, "Oh yeah, a baseball hat!!". Then we had to go inside and get a hat before he could hit anymore balls.

Later, I was blowing bubbles for him and he was chasing them down. As he ran after the bubbles, he would say, "Hey, come back here you bubble!!! Oh, I got you!! I got you!!". Then when the bubble would pop he would say, "Oh, he's gone!!".

In other Hoerth news, the stomach flu (luckily no vomiting, though) has hit our house. This is very unusual for us. So far, only Carter and Jason have had the full-blown version. I'm REALLY hoping that Jack and I continue to avoid it.....I don't know how a fairly newly potty-trained kiddo would do with the stomach flu. YIKES!!!

This and That

We've actually had a fairly low-key day today which is really nice. After Carter went over to school, Jack and I had some time to just chill out and watch "Regis and Kelly" (my fave!!). I got out the camera to take some pictures of Jack and those of you who know him well can imagine how well that went!!! I didn't get many pics of him but I did get a video of him singing some of his Kindermusik songs. You'll notice that throughout most of the video, his back is to me and at one point he even has his rear end sticking up right at the camera. That just about sums up Jack's feeling about having pictures/video taken of him.:0)

Carter had his yearly physical with the pediatrician later in the morning. We went into the appointment anticipating no shots and Carter was not so happy to find out that he would need to have one for Hep. A. He immediately started crying and begging me to let him wait until next year to get it. I calmly assured him that it wouldn't be that bad (you can probably guess how much that helped). He is in the 50-75th percentile for weight and BMI and in the 75-90th for height (essentially, he's tall and skinny.....have NO idea where he got that from!!!). I asked about his frequent headaches and the doctor said that he most likely inherited the propensity to get them from me and that we would just have to become aware of his "triggers". After the doctor left, the medical assistant came back in with the shot. Carter started crying and begging again asking, "Can we please just wait 5 minutes?!?!" and "Mom, let's just come back tomorrow and get it!!!". Yeah right!!! Like waiting 5 minutes or going back tomorrow would make you react any differently!!!! The MA talked to him very calmly and said, "You have to get this shot today, Buddy, so you need to just relax or I'm going to have to get someone to come in and hold you down so I can give it to you". That may seem kind of harsh but for a kiddo like Carter, that's what works. She gave him the shot (which he didn't even feel) and we left.

We took Carter back to school and then Jack and I came home. He worked on a Valentine's painting for his best bud, Annabelle. He wanted to use brown and green paint for the colors but I convinced him that perhaps white and pink on red paper would be more appropriate for Valentine's Day.:0)

He's studying his creation carefully to make sure it's just right.:0)

Oops!! Dropped some paint on the floor. Good thing we're in the basement!!!

Our adorable little artist!!!

Jack Cuteness:0)

I'm so sorry that I have been such a blog slacker!!! For some reason blogging just hasn't been on the top of my priority list lately. Then today, Jack did the cutest thing and I thought, "Hey, that would be great to share on our blog!!". Hopefully this will spur me on to more regular blogging again. Anyway, here's the Jack cuteness for today:

I was sitting on the couch with a heating pad on my back.

Jack: "Mommy, what's wrong with your elbow?"

Me: "Nothing's wrong with my elbow, Buddy. My back hurts."

Jack: "Oh, what's wrong with your back, Mommy?"

Me: "I don't know, it just hurts."

Jack: "Is it all itchy and scratchy?"

Me: (laughing) "No, Buddy, it just hurts."

Jack: "Here, I kiss it and make it feel better."

Then he pushed my back up off the arm of the couch and gave it a sweet kiss. What a sweet pea!!